Trunk Or Treat

We went to a trunk or treat at Krispy Kreme which was sponsored by the local police to support Special Olympics. Here they are pulling their cop-on-a -doughnut-shop stunt.

Coryn was Super Why from the PBS show of the same name. He loves being a super reader, I am often any of the others... Alpha Pig, Wonder Red, or Princess Presto.


Getting candy yeah! ooo, shiny motorcycle.

Here's G-pop's station, the paddy wagon, everyone in this shot.

Coryn's in the paddy wagon now.

Had to shake hands with Ratatouille, I'm assuming because he shook hands with McGruff the crime dog.

In case you were wondering, yes this is still in Boise, and yes it was after we were supposed to leave, but thats a story for another post.

Last week in Boise

So, after Jackson left we had a week of waiting before we tried for the hop back to Oki, for the most part we just hung out... here's G-pop and Coryn, all dressed up from work, and Coryn's first look at a tazer.

Gotta love that piano!

Everyone else is doing it! Why can't I?

Here's another Coryn picture, he can take some good pictures sometimes... but lately all he wants to do is take video of his feet while he walks.
Finally the day we went to the airport, we had some awesome steak at Outback and Carter had a blast getting teased with the coaster.
Bbbfbbbfbbbfbbb...

Last 24 hours.

Gifts from Dad, Carter's says "got freedom?" and the back says "Compliments of the US Army", and Coryn's says "This shirt was brought to you by the letters A R M Y and the # 1"

Last minute packing.Airport goodbyes, this is one of Kiki's happier looks :).
See you in 9 months Dad!

Pre-deployment visit

One of the first things we did with Dad? Shoe shopping! go figure, he looks really tired here... yay Moondoggies!

Poster boy for the NRA... this is one of the few pics of him playing with it that I feel comfortable posting, he was chewing on the end for most of them.

Coryn still played with the cats, much to their chagrin.
We did manage to have some laughs with Dad. Went swimming once, had a birthday party, and lots of fun while he was here, but it went too quick and I didn't get very many pics... Dad has more that I do I think.

Waiting

They can play nice sometimes... did I mention that before? I'm having deja vu.

Ooo, whats in here?

Here kitty, kitty.

I love my grandparents!

This was the week we were just waiting for Jackson to come visit.

Linder Farms

Carter likes to try to play with Grandpa's computer.

We went to Linder Farms to have a fall festivus, here we are on the hayride with Jen and company.

They had a little haybale maze Coryn enjoyed.

Grandie had pumpkins in her backyard and after the first visit to them Coryn asked everytime we went over to visit the pumpkins. Here he's also sporting Grandie's stylin' pink shades on his shirt.
hehehe

Nebraska

Okay, now its catch up time...

We took a long road trip to Nebraska to see Great Grandparents. All in all the kids did well... here Carter is getting his head massaged by Grandpa and he seems to like it.

We had a good time visiting... the kids really took to life in Nebraska, they didn't seem to mind being in an unfamiliar environment and they immediately liked Grandparents. Carter discovered the joy of pulling himself up on furniture and the fun he can have in a swing.

Coryn, who is often afraid of random things at random times made us put him in the baby swing and called it the swing he couldn't fall out of, but by the end of the week he had started to use the big boy swing.

Here Coryn is playing with Great Grandma and a jack in the box, for a whole day he went to everyone saying 'watch this' then popping the jack out and watching our reactions... gasping, wowing, whatever.

As you can see, the kids weren't the only ones enjoying the swings... (good picture Coryn!!)

J-Bad Highway

I enjoyed this clip and I think you will too. It gives you a pretty good idea what driving in slike over here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Ne8frFhSw

How to Get to Afghanistan Without Really Even Trying

So I trained at Bragg from 18 July - 8 October. After a too short leave period which I was able to spend in Boise (Lisa and the boys happened to be over there too) I returned to Bragg and began the adventure of getting to a war zone. On 16 July at 1030 those of us that were part of the ADVON (basically an advance party) for the 12 PRTs deploying (three from each team) boarded a charter bus and drove from Fayettevile, NC to the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. A drive that took 6 or 7 hours. After checking luggage, eating dinner, and waiting a while for the flight to board we took off around midnight on the morning of the 17th. I sat on the plane next to a little boy who was about three or four and reminded me a lot of Coryn. As I was putting my bag in the overhead bin he looked up at me and said, "You know what? I think I'm going to let you sit next to me." I thanked him for that and I chatted for a bit with him and his mother who was sitting on his other side. His dad had recently returned from Afghanistan and they were returning to Germany where he is stationed. I asked the kid what his name is and he told me, "Bruce Wayne, you know, the super hero." To which I responded, "You mean the billionaire owner of Wayne Industries? hum, I thought you would have been older." His name was actually Joseph but his mom told me he had been pretending to be Bruce Wayne for the last couple of day.

Well, we flew from BWI to Rammstein, Germany and after a 90 layover to refuel and change aircrew we continued on to Insurlik, Turkey where we had another 90 layover and on to Manas, Krygyzstan. Now there's someplace I NEVER though I would be able to say I had visited. For some reason, the military... I'm not sure if it was Army or Air Force but I can only assume it was the Army (I now make it a point to slander the Army at least once a day... it a good venting method) had only booked us through Manas and we then had to make further arrangement to actually get a flight to Afghanistan. Well, Manas was a pretty nice place, which is good because we were stuck there for about four days. There was good food, an LDS sacrament service on Sunday (there were three of us in attendance), and a few shops so I was able to send a few souvenirs home.

This is a shop that was set up to look like a Yurt... I bought a Kyrgyzstan shot glass there.

6495 miles from BWI to Manas.

Yes, I'm well aware I'm about to enter a war zone... thanks for the reminder, especially while you're warm and cozy in the Club Med of "deployments"

The cool little chapel at Manas

I'm not sure this is the best way to start a licence plate in a former Soviet Republic, but maybe it's just me.

We Finally got a flight on a C-17 from Manas to Bagram and after a few days of briefs and trying to get a flight to FOB Gardez I arrived at the forward operating base I will be calling home for the next 9 months. It took about 10 or so days total to get here, but I have arrived and I am ready to get on with it. I'll post a little more about Gardez soon, assuming the Internet doesn't go down... it happens around here.

Here's me on the C-17...

...and here is everyone else (Lisa, that's Jane leaning forward on the right)

I Don't Mean to Bragg, but People Know Me

Well, as nearly all of you know, in mid-July I left for a 12 month Army deployment to Afghanistan and what a journey it has been so far. I have been assigned to be the supply officer (S4) of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the Provence of Paktya in the eastern part of the country.

The first three months of the deployment I was at Fort Bragg, NC training with my team that consists of three active duty Army guys, some Army Reserve civil affairs guys, a National Guard infantry platoon and a bunch of Air Force personnel. Yes, we are quite the hodgepodge and we were all brought together at Bragg to receive training prior to going "over there." What actually happened was we came together as a team, finding common ground in how much we hated the Bragg experience and the incompetence of those who were training us. It honestly had potential but really all they did was get us excited to get to Afghanistan (and out of NC). I would like to think that was their actual intention but I'm not willing to give them that much credit.

Below is a picture of my supply crew. Not a bad looking bunch if i do say so myself!

I have two Air Force guys working on my supply team, and we also have two "honorary" S4 team members. From Left to right in the front is Air Force Staff Sergeant (E-5) Figueroa my armorer who will be playing role of my supply NCO down range. Next to Fig is USAF Tech Sergeant (E-6) Cooey who is the overall supply NCOIC but when we get to Afghanistan he will be staying at Bagram Air Field to ensure that supplies that we order are forwarded down to us and he will also be handling accommodations for personnel heading up that way. He doesn't want to be up there and I'd rather have him with me but we need a guy up there and he's the man. Next to him is USAF Captain Parris our Physician's Assistant. Not on the S4 team but, you know, everyone wants to be on my team and I didn't have the heart to tell him to get out of the picture ;). In the rear left is USAF Captain Shafran, the first honorary S4 team member... I'll talk about her a bit more later. The next fierce looking, steely eyed, stone cold killer would be the only Army cat in the section, the HMFIC (if you really want to know, ask) yours truly, The Lieutenant Irish, a.k.a. LTI. The last individual in the picture is Senior Airman (E-4) Mayo, also an honorary member of the team. He's a good guy to hang out with so we used him for supply reasons whenever possible. It got him out of some of the crap we were doing so it was a bit of a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" arrangement.

The reason that Stacie... Capt Shafran, is an honorary team member is that she has emerged as my best friend on the team. We had a pact at Bragg. She kept me from throwing myself in front of any and every bus that passed us and I did the same for her. It is a lot easier to pass through hell when you have someone going through the same thing to commiserate with. Plus we have a very similar sense of humor so we did what we could to make our incarceration as good as it could be under the circumstances.